iTunes: The Add-ons You May Have Missed
iTunes is one of my most used apps. However, there are many times when I wish that it had x feature added in or y feature from the start. The sad truth is that iTunes doesn’t come with every wanted feature. There are so many apps and addons that center around iTunes that it can be daunting to sift out the gold. After trying many of them, I found the addons that worked the best, the addons that were the quickest, and the most functional. Here are some iTunes plugins that really do help out.
ByteController is a freeware alternative to the popular Synergy. It sits in your menu bar – it can run in the background and if you opt, only show itself when iTunes is open. It has a simple interface with 3 controls: Play/Pause, Beginning of Track/Back One Track, and Skip +5 Seconds in Current Track/Skip to Next Track. The buttons are skinable, and the user can define hotkeys to eliminate mouse usage whatsoever. While it may lack some of the features of Synergy, it acts simply as an iTunes controller and does it well. Many of the apps that will follow will make-up for some of the missing features from Synergy.
iEatBrainz is a popular application that will fix your ID3 tags by creating an acoustic finger print and matching it to a database to get the correct album, artist, and track information. While you could do it manually, it can be pretty tedious to attempt if you have a lot to clean up. I know this article is titled, add-ons you’ve missed, but having correct ID3 tags is key to making the rest of these applications work properly.
Growl is a freeware system notification tool that is not relegated to just iTunes. It is very customizable through the add-on scripts that are available through the developer. Synergy offers notification integration with iTunes, but lacks support for other apps (such as Safari, Mail, Adium, Vienna, etc. – which is quite handy). The notification windows will pop-up for a user defined length of time and if the user opts, can email or speak the contents aloud. With the growlTunes integration, the window will show track information including title, album, artist, length, star rating, and (if available) album art.
Clutter is a freeware app that can display album art and track info on your desktop, much like the notification information that Growl displays. I prefer the way Growl handles this task, but I was easily smitten with the ease of use of the application for tracking down album art. Personally, the way iTunes handles album art since 7.0 isn’t ideal, but being able to bind the album art to the ID3 tag info is nice and that is where Clutter shines. It connects with Amazon, and as long as your ID3 tag is somewhat correct (see why I listed iEatBrainz first?), it will find the appropriate album art. The user may then apply it to the current track or album and have a nice piece of album art displayed when Growl notifies them of a track change, or when using Front Row, or the new Apple TV.
iConcertCal is a free plug-in that analyzes the artists in your iTunes library and looks for concerts in your area. It interfaces with Jambase, so it should work for a user anywhere in the world. Very cool. Music should lead to a chance to connect with others, not just leave one isolated with iPod buds in their ears.
The Filter is a project that recently moved to the Beta stage. The project is very intriguing and extremely useful to anyone with a sizable library. I have a library of over 7,000 tracks, which amounts to 16.5 days worth of music without hearing a repeat. It is ideal for those moments where you’re feeling relaxed while listening to some mellow Explosions in the Sky track, and then it’s ruined by the next song shuffle to a classical symphony. Enter The Filter – you select 3 songs, it analyzes your library, and Filter finds other songs in your library that fit along with the 3 you chose. This creates a new playlist (if your ID3 tag information is correct), and keeps adding to it as you get through your initial tracks. The user may choose to base the similarities on the artist, genre, or individual song. There are so many tracks that I have missed, or have forgotten about, that The Filter has brought to my attention.
JewelCase serves no purpose but to look pretty, albeit it does that very well. It’s a visualization that will take whatever song is playing, the album art you have saved (see? I told you that using Clutter is nice) and recreates a gorgeous jewel CD case with all the songs on that album that you have in your library.
Volume Logic is nothing new, but newly updated for iTunes 7.0 as it is just out of beta. It manages the equalizer better than I ever could dream and balances out the loudness between tracks better than iTunes does on it’s own. It can also take into account your speaker types and genre of music. The difference between using the equalizer built into iTunes and Volume Logic is night and day. Anyone with a nice speaker set: you’re missing out on so much that you don’t even realize. Try it and hear for yourself.
As you can see, most of these apps build upon one another to enrich your iTunes experience. Once you get your ID3 tags in order, and get your album art collected, keep up with it as you expand your library to save yourself the trouble of doing it all over again. I’m always finding new ways to enjoy my music, and if I have happened to miss any of your favorites, please feel free to share in the comments.
Lol, this list without GimmeSomeTune, the best iTunes addon ever created?
This list is worthless without even just mentioning GimmeSomeTune.
Coversutra is also an awesome addon, worth the money: http://www.coversutra.com/
Try it
SomeOtherguy – I was a former user of GimmeSomeTune and I found these alternatives to be better for a few different reasons:
1. The bezel display in GimmeSomeTune isn’t customizable and the default display is bulky and tends to get in my way.
2. The hotkeys was a great feature for skipping tracks, but wouldn’t work when I was playing a game.
3. The mini-controller is flaky and doesn’t fit as well as ByteController as it can’t sit in the tray – you may place it OVER the tray, but once there’s an app that loads under it, you have to move it again.
4. The album art fetcher grabs the first available cover art image from amazon – while this may work for those with an iTunes library consisting of Top 40, it doesn’t in the slightest work for me. With Clutter you have options when there are multiple search results. Once you have the wrong cover art attached to a song, it’s a bit more difficult to sort out as opposed to a song with no album art attached.
Matt – I’ll have to give Coversutra a shot. The remote tie in option looks nice, and maybe the shortcut keys will work in games. The main downside I see is the lack of track info on the bezel during the popup. I’ll have to play with it sometime this week. Thanks!
Different strokes for different folks – everyone wants different functionality, I just hope my first article showed some new options to most.
Awesome review!
I personally use Menuet as my iTunes controller.
You can also use iTunes triggers in Quicksilver to control iTunes. This is nice because it doesn’t matter which program you are currently working in.
iConcertCal sounds cool, I will have to check it out.
Pretty much agree with this list – The Filter is magnificent indeed.
All these notifiers are a tad annoying now! I have growl showing me my album artwork and remote buddy as well. I need to work out how to turn them all off!
[...]  Serwis MacApper zamieścił krótki i przydatny artykuł poświęcony kilku wtyczkom do programu iTunes. Polecam lekturę. [...]
SizzlingKeys is the best controller imo. you get global controls, and all sorts of other goodies.
Menuet … CoverSutra
Menuet … CoverSutra
Menuet … CoverSutra
Which one ???!!!!
What about Corripio?
http://nclasssoftware.com/
[...] with an almost infinite amount of extensions. Paul DeBoer recently ran down a list of his favorite iTunes add-ons here on MacApper, and most of them are very good at what they do. He mentioned several [...]
[...] with an almost infinite amount of extensions. Paul DeBoer recently ran down a list of his favorite iTunes add-ons here on MacApper, and most of them are very good at what they do. He mentioned several [...]
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[...] in hand (don’t we all) then you can also run the application for searching the content of the iTunes, iPod, Mail and iPhoto [...]
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For those interested in another great iTunes add-on, Nutsie sideTunes mixes in custom tailored, streaming music selections based on what’s in your iTunes library.
Btw, ByteController is great. Thanks bringing it to my attention.
iEatbrainz doesnt work properly anymore because it uses a now defunct system for matching files from http://www.musicbrainz.org , but musicbrainz now has a new system that can be used with http://www.jaikoz.net which is pretty cool at fixing tags, artwork and lyrics
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